inventory

A new research project to investigate Virtual School and College Provision called VISCED has just been launched with the support of the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme.
Partners in the VISCED project including ATiT are making an inventory of innovative ICT-enhanced learning initiatives and major ‘e-mature’ secondary and post-secondary education providers for the 14-21 age group in Europe.  This includes a systematic review at international and national levels as well as a study into operational examples of fully virtual schools and colleges. The outputs of this work will be analysed and compared to identify relevant parameters and success factors for classifying and comparing these initiatives. This initiative is open to researchers and policy-makers, all outputs will be published on the VISCED wiki.

The Handbook: "Reviewing the Virtual Campus Phenomenon: The Rise of Large-scale e-Learning Initiatives Worldwide" has been published and is available for free download.

This handbook, one of the main outputs of the Re.ViCa project, provides a wealth of background on the Virtual Campus phenomenon as well as a snapshot of the current status of Virtual Campuses worldwide where you can find a description of current initiatives, market leaders and large-scale providers. It also includes a set of Critical Success Factors, aimed at those interested in setting-up sustainable Virtual Campus initiatives.

It was written by Paul Bacsich, Sally Reynolds, Theo Bastiaens, Sara Frank Bristow, Ilse Op de Beeck and Bieke Schreurs, the editor was Bieke Schreurs. Further information about Virtual Campuses is available from the project wiki.